Lost in Peaky Blinders
by whysheswallowedafly
Summary: "What was it called?" The drunken men in the pub asked. "Twitter." She replied, quite bored. "TWIT-tah!" They erupted in laughter.


Sidenote! okay, I know this is silly. It was just a few situations that popped into my head while watching Silicon Valley and Peaky Blinders. I know the chatacter 'Lucy' is from neither show. I'm just trying to insert an avatar that hopefully someone can relate to.

I welcome any criticism, it wont phase me negatively. I'll consider it, even if i don't respond or update right away. This is but a first draft. typed out on a cell phone. I have more comical situations in my head. Also, as a side note, I cannot take credit for anything. Not even "my OC". Why do people always say, " I own nothing EXCEPT my OC"? My OC would not exsist in my mind if not for the talented people who created these shows. So how could anyone take credit for simply inserting an avatar version of themselves into an already flushed out beautiful story that they could never take credit for? I never understood that...

Thomas Shelby tried hard to listen in on the conversation between the strange couple on the other side of the door. But nothing they said made any sense to him. They were American. It was early in the pub and hardly anyone was there. He gave it a beat then walked into the drinking room.

"Are you serious? Smartphones won't be invented for 80 years! Stop thinking about your algorithm and concentrate on how we can get the fuck out of this place." The female said.

"Shouldn't we at least try to capitalise off this? I mean maybe if we are the first to invent the computer or even a fucking calculator…" the man trailed off when they both finally noticed Thomas's presence.

Immediately, they looked down at their table and went silent.

"John told me you two might be here." Thomas said as he took a seat at their table. He stared at them each.

The man, as always, offered a nervous explaination, "We were just discussing our options as far as living expenses-"

"We are not living here." The woman said with a sarcastic laugh. She quickly averted her eyes as if she was afraid of pissing him off.

Thomas tried to catch her eye anxious to know more, "Computers ….calculators?" He asked. She said nothing. He looked to the man. He was a very fidgety individual. So was the woman. But much less so. The man seemed uptight all the time.

"Hey I know this is a strange question but do people still get accused of witchcraft this day and …uh…age?" The man suddenly asked in a very polite manner, keeping his voice hushed.

"Richard." The woman said sternly. Clearly, she was embarrassed by his behavior. An awkward silence.

"Well anyway," Richard continued, annoyed that Thomas had merely just blinked at him in response. Thomas fought himself not to smile at the ridiculous question and how serious Richard had asked it.

"I've decided that we are going to stay here for a while." Richard announced, seemingly at peace.

The woman scoffed, and a flurry of angry words came out of her mouth, "Fuck you. I'm not staying here are you are fucking kidding me what are you going to do, listen to music all the live long day on your iphone," then she stood up with a realization, "There's not even electric guitars here yet!" she looked quite vexed by this epiphany.

"Lucy. Sit down." Richard nervously said.

This time Thomas couldn't help but smile. What in the world were these people talking about? Suddenly he realized it. He stopped smiling and lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair and gestured to them both. "You're street performers. Come from America, thinking your accent will make us laugh." He said in a smug way.

Richard and Lucy began coughing due to his cigarette.

"Are you allowed to smoke in here?" Richard asked mostly to himself.

Well the smugness only pissed off Lucy more. She rounded in on Thomas, "Guess what?" she sneered, that sarcastic smile again. This time fire was behind her eyes and it was very comical to Thomas.

Richard tried to intervene. "Yes!" Richard laughed hysterically, "we are performers. You got us!"

But Lucy wasn't going to stop until that smug face Thomas had was gone. "We're from the future!" She stated it so loud and proudly that everyone in the entire pub looked at her. "Yeah that's right." She paused a minute, obviously not expecting an audience. "And guess the fuck what," she continued as Richard sat there with his hands covering his face, "There's going to be another world war soon," She said, pleased at the gasps she heard. This prompted Richard to stand up and anxiously grab her toward the exit. "But guess what. no one will give a fuck in the future because instead of your cigarettes, we will all have these little devices called smartphones and facebook," She directed her ranting to Thomas who just apathetically resumed smoking his cigarette.

"She's gone mad everyone. I apologize. Please continue doing …what you're doing." Richard nervously called out while ushering her out of the pub. But not before Thomas heard her say something about everyone being connected to a "network in which we will all talk shit about the revolution and underappreciate and forget this whole era" amongst other things that apparently will occur.

The people in the pub erupted with laughter and imitated Lucy's accent and behavior in a mocking way. Thomas put out his cigarette and followed the couple.

"What the fuck Lucy," Richard began. But before they started to bicker, Thomas chose that time to interrupt him.

"Excuse me," he began. Lucy kept on walking, ignoring him.

"Look, man." Richard walked over to Thomas, "I'm sorry about this. She has a mental condition-"

"I've seen madness. She isn't mad." Thomas said.

Richard smirked at that, still trying to make him believe otherwise.

"Trust me. You have no idea.."

"Where are you staying tonight?" Thomas asked.

For once, Richard was at a loss for words.

This time, Thomas was able to more easily eavesdrop from outside of their rented loft he set them up in that was part of The Shelby estate. The two were clearly not lovers. He learned that much from bits of their odd conversation. Though they seemed to be posing as such to avoid any unwanted attention. They talked for quite awhile about "causal loops", whatever that was.

It seemed to be an endless argument between them. Did the song from the future they taught people become famous because they taught it to them in the past? They didn't know...

"You actually said 'Hubba Hubba', said those actual words" Lucy's voice was slightly muffled, "Then pretended that you didn't when she looked at us. Do you know how embarrassing that is?"

"Right. Cause telling fucking Thomas Shelby, leader of Peaky Blinders, about facebook isn't embarrassing." Richard shot back.

"Coulda been worse," she said.

"I'm sorry. How could it be worse?"

Lucy was silent. Richard huffed a laugh. Whether it was a genuine laugh or not, Thomas was unsure. What he was sure about is that people from America must be heavily sarcastic.

"Do you think it's like some sort of tear in time space, or maybe a temporal rift or we've been drugged with class A DMT," Thomas carefully listened to Lucy's senseless rant, "And that it will wear off soon? I just keep thinking that."

"Careful." Richard responded, "You know what Nietzsche said about hope."

"Yeah. Thanks a lot, Nietzsche! Oh my God. Is he alive? I have a lot of quesions."

"Already dead."

"Fuck this." was all Lucy said.

"Does it always just rain every fucking day here?" Richard stated.

Thomas knocked on their door.

Richard and Lucy looked at eachother, frightened. Richard rolled his eyes when she refused to be the one who answered it.

Richard pulled open the door to see Thomas Shelby.

"Hello." Richard said in obvious discomfort.

"Mr. Hendriks." Thomas tipped his hat.

That day, they struck up a deal. To pay rent, Lucy and Richard could work as Secretaries to the Shelbys.

Once Richard closed the door, Lucy asked, "What did he say?"

"Something about being in charge of books if we are willing." Richard walked to the center of the room and sighed. "This is so fucked up."

Lucy wondered what books you could be in charge of around here. But it sounded easy.

Richard sat with the ledger and examined the math. Lucy took all the bets from the men, ignoring their snide comments.

For fun, when there was nothing left to do, Lucy worked hard on moding the ticker tape machine.

It was only seconds later that a man with a gun came in demanding to place a late bet. A fight broke out, ending with the Shelby boys beating up a couple of people.

Richard and Lucy watched in horror.

"That's it. I'm out," exclaimed Lucy.

Lucy flew out the door and began to walk very quickly away from the whole disaster.

It was only a minute she began to worry about her safety alone on those streets when she heard a voice behind her.

"Miss Lucy." She jumped at the proximity of the voice. It was Thomas.

"What." She kept walking towards their flat, still fully freaked out about the violent disruption.

Thomas walked along side her. "Please." He said. "Just listen." He grabbed her arm making her look at him.

She'd never seen him vexed before this moment. It was alarming. She stopped walking and stood there trying to catch her breath.

"I know that where you're from, you're not use to seeing such a display." He said, a bit desperately, " But I assure you, this is a very rare thing and will not happen again."

Not knowing what she was going to do anyway, Lucy simply sighed out of frustration. Finally meeting Thomas's eyes, she gestured for him to lead the way back. He eveloped her arm in his and together they walked back into the pub.

It was an odd experience but his eyes made her silent. She got the feeling he was grateful for her silence.

And once again she found herself in the pub, helping with math and reading.

The days were so long here for Lucy. She wondered if it was due to lack of electronic gadgets. Usually, she was very bored and so turned her hobby into drinking rum a lot.

But not Richard. Richard became a peaky blinder. But the most ridiculous thing was that Thomas was letting him run the joint.

One day, Thomas came into the pub to find a group of men and women gathered around Lucy, who was sitting at a table looking quite bored.

"And what is it called again?" one of the drunken blokes asked her. Lucy sighed.

"Twitter. " She said, perturbed about the whole thing.

"TWIT-Tah!" Arthur repeated.

The crowd erupted in laugher. Thomas walked over to the bar to pour himself and Lucy a pint. He heard Arthur's voice ask very belligerent questions combined with Lucy's bored voice. It was surreal.

A few months ago, The first night they got Lucy drunk, she had just sat there like a blubbering fool. She talked about how all the girls in her "gym class" were bitches. The "redneck jocks" were apparently over-priveledged "retards". She then apologised profusely stating that alcohol in "this day and age" was far more stout than the "age where she's from."

He brought Lucy a pint over and told the crowd to leave.

"Thank you." Lucy said, downing her pint as the crowd thinned out.

"You seen Richard anywhere ?" she eventually asked.

Thomas looked down at this drink. She knew that look. She sighed heavily.

Billy Kimble's racing grounds. Richard thought that he could easily outwit anyone from this era. What a mistake. These people were more real than any weed smoking hipster. They were feirce from a life of hardship. Paranoid and violent. These were not dumb fuck priveledged white guys. They were tough and unyeilding.

"Fuck." Richard said aloud as he watched Billy Kimble jump down the throat if one of his own men.

"So go on then. Tell me why they sent you." Billy spoke to Richard.

"Oh. Okay. So I came here to offer you a deal." Richard stopped talking when Billy put his gun in his face.

"Tell me why. I. should fucking listen to you. You maggot faced fuck " Billy cocked his gun.

Richard had his hands up.

"Do you know something that no one else knows?" Billy said.

Richard huffed. What an overstated thing…..

"You have no idea…"

Billy brought his gun down a bit, waiting for Richard to explain.

"I...I know that your races are legitimate. But people are making money off of them illegally."

"Fucking who is." Billy was seething.

"The Lee family." Billy shot the wall beside Richard's head out of sheer anger. It took Richard a long time to calm down and realize that he was still alive.

"Ss…so. I uh…" Richard continued as he found his footing. "I have a proposition."

"Stuff your proposition!" Billy yelled point blank in his face. Billy paused a moment, waiting for the timid man to continue. When he didn't, Billy yelled, "WHAT'S your proposition?!" Billy did not seem it on the outside, but he was astounded that the Peaky Blinders would send this blubbering cockless man to speak to him. What's their game? He thought, thoroughly intrigued.

"We join forces. I know math. I know what catches the eye as well." Richard said. He grew excited to show Billy his laser light show. Granted it was new and highly cutting edge. But despite being mortally threatened, he felt confident that Billy would drop his aggressivity once he saw what Richard had made.

Richard even paid a guitarist to help back him as he explained his invention.

Billy was mesmorized.

Lucy noticed that the infamous Peaky Blinders looked a bit worried when Richard did not return at the hour that was planned.

She downed another shot.

"Don't worry. He's fine." Lucy said. She then proceeded in teaching them "Common People" a song by the band Pulp in which she claimed she'd made up. Soon, the whole pub was singing it.

Richard could wow people with his intelligence in the modern world. This world? They'd probably worship him.

The brothers did not seem to believe her. However, all they could do was sit and drink.

Minutes later, Richard arrived safe and sound. Boasting about how he put Billy's men in the "cut" after he shot them.

Peaky Blinders looked impressed. Lucy scoffed.

"No he didn't ," She told then.

Richard felt embarrassed and immediately spewed the details of the interaction. The guitar player, Mickey, looked a bit peturbed while Richard went into detail about the event.

Apparently Billy threatened to bring his men to Small Heath and do away with their loved ones if Richard ever visited again.

Lucy shook her head. She and Richard were unable to meet the eyes of the Shelby family.

Lucy and Richard strained to hear better. Was it laughter? Yes. The Shelby family were laughing amongst themselves.

Richard and Lucy just looked at eachother in defeat with a mutual "wtf" look.

TBC...

I welcome any critisism. it wont phase me negatively. I'll consider it, even if i don't respond or update right away. This is but a first draft. typed out on a cell phone. I have more comical situations in my head. Also, as a side note, I cannot take credit for anything. Not even "my OC". Why do people always say, " I own nothing EXCEPT my OC? My OC would not exsist in my mind if not for the talented people who created these shows. So how could anyone take credit for simply inserting an avatar version of themselves into an already flushed out beautiful story that they could never take credit for?


End file.
